This is the view from the patio at our hotel room of Virginia Beach about 11am, July 22. It was predicted to be a very hot day. VERY hot.

Our patio was 90 yards from the edge of the water. Notice how close people are to the water?

The hotel weather station and the news said it reached 105F that day! It was so hot you could only walk about 10' on the sand before burning your feet! Everyone put their umbrellas and tents really close to the water!

We were crowded together.

Getting there about 10am, by 1pm it was so hot that we left the beach for lunch. Usually we ate there under our tent, but not that day!

During lunch my daughter and her friend thought that it might be best to do something else.

What did they decide? The movies! And Harry Potter...

As a home inspector I was interested by their wanting to go to the movies.

Why you ask? Because, aside from the movie, what they really wanted was to take advantage of air conditioning.

Air conditioning has been around since the days of ancient Rome, and maybe before. They circulated aqueduct water through the walls of certain houses to cool the rooms.

In 1902, a young man working for $10/week at a printing plant had an idea to keep the machines cooler by lowering the humidity in the plant. Heat and humidity were causing the paper to wrinkle and move, and that made the color printing not turn out properly as it required many passes. The young man found that his process to reduce the humidity also cooled the air! This serendipity showed him that enough cool air could make a whole house or even a building comfortable. It worked in the printing plant!

The young man was Willis Haviland Carrier. And you have all heard of Carrier air conditioners! His further-developed process worked so well he applied for a patent in 1907. It was accepted in 1914, and his formulas are STILL USED TODAY by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers!

Why the photo of the Biograph Theater above? What do you notice about it?

Air conditioning was slow to take off. The movie industry, however, recognized its benefits, and in the 1920s and 1930s many prescient movie theaters equipped themselves with air conditioning. Notice the marquee - "COOLED BY REFRIGERATION" and "ICED FROM THE AIR." Those letters are bigger than the movie title!

What better way to get people off of their stiflingly-hot front porches and into the movies. Capitalism at work! Theaters were packed.

At the Biograph theater above, located in northeast Chicago, on the night of 22 July 1934, Public Enemy #1, John Dillinger, was watching a movie. Like everyone else, he loved air conditioning and went to the movies often! On that night, coming out of the theater, he was met by the FBI, ran into an alley nearby and was shot dead. John Dillinger was finally brought down, by air conditioning!

So the next time you take advantage of the movies on a hot summer day, remember, it was the theaters that really introduced air conditioning to our country! AC did not take off residentially until the 1950s and 60s, but in the theaters it has been popular for quite some time!

Jay * GREAT STORY * I did not live in WHOLE HOUSE AC until I was 25...growing up, we had WHOLE HOUSE fans in our attic. Last person going to bed turned on the timer and the vents to the attic opened and the cool air was pulled from the lower floors through the house and out the attic.....it was great!

My departing residents don't understand when my carpet cleaner tells them to put their AC on after he cleans the carpet to REMOVE THE MOISTURE FAST!

Well, Roy, it was super hot that day! I don't remember the sand being so hot! Everyone was crammed down at the water!

Don - no, too expensive a device and that sand gets into everything. And if someone saw me playing with the camera and then should I have it taken from me, well, that would be a bit expensive a loss. Yes, it's insured, but I've never tested just how much I might get back in return to cover my loss!

Wallace - that AC will dry the carpets really fast. In a couple of hours probably. I think whole-house fans are great and when houses have them during home inspections I demonstrate just how much air they pull through a window or door! It is instructive!

I remember that growing up here in Florida, my parents never had air conditioning. Looking back, I don't know how we did it! Either we are "spoiled" to it now or the climate has changed. I think a little of both, I can't imagine not having it now.

Jay interesting segue from the hot beach to a history lesson on air conditioning. After about a week and a half, we have turned ours off for the next few days. We prefer to have the windows open if the nights are cooler...

That's interesting. Also funny, because I grew up at the beach and used to always bring a jacket to the movies in summer because they kept them so cold.

I will say I am so thankful for AC being practically everywhere now - I was born & raised in the south, and still joke about buying a "summer home" somewhere much colder, but I might have moved by now if it wasn't for central air.

Posted by Raine Carraway over 7 years ago

I can relate to the hot sand and we had no where to go.

Went to a waterpark with the kids on Friday.....about halfway up one of the slides the concrete was so hot I actually thought I blistered my foot! Kids were trying to carry tubes and run through that 50 foot stretch.

Wonderful history lesson Jay! How AC was an integral factor in the imminent demise of Dillinger is very interesting. I'm pleased that I was pointed in you direction by my inspector friends up here in the northwest... Your posts are insightful and educational. Real nice reads...So nice that I will refrain from comments about how you have first-hand knowledge of that era...But seriously Jay, I really enjoy your blogs. I agree with your review of the Harvey Porter films, we netflixed one of them once and I fell asleep as well! No disrespect to the HP followers, I must be too old too!

Weather is weather Debbie! Happens every year around here! It's cool right now in Canada and the southwest by normal standards!

Curtis - thanks! Even in my silly posts (Billy Jays and Mr. Jay's Neighborhood) I try to be instructive. And I've had a few posts about our dogs! Yours is gorgeous. What breed is that? As to HP, I read and still prefer Tolkein, but I am no follower so to speak.

That's Chester, he's the Red-Bone Coonhound... Maybe more common in your neck of the woods but somewhat rare out here in the West. Chester is almost 10 and we also have a Blue-Tic Coonhound that turns 15 in a couple weeks. We don't hunt with them although Chester did find our lost cat once. Their best skill is taking up space on the couch.

PS. Did you get my little joke about the HP spelling? I heard someone mispronounce it on the radio once thought it was pretty darn funny.